Lucky

Occasionally something happens that makes you stop and realize how lucky you are to be alive, despite the everyday hassles, automated customer service, flaky friends, parking tickets, disappointing restaurants, or whatever your complaint of the day may be.

93 is a two-lane highway between Golden and Boulder that can be one of the most treacherous stretches you'll ever drive in bad weather. On your right as you head south to Golden are the foothills and about seven miles out of town the road winds downward and drops off. It's here that I've seen emergency vehicles slide off into the canyon as they arrive, lights blaring in the dark, to rescue cars that have spun out on ice.

I did the Golden-Boulder commute for three winters, in pre-cell phone days. Although I've always had four-wheel drive and knew well enough to leave my job early to get a head start on the bad roads, I still had two-hour drives home on a stretch that should have taken half an hour. Walking in the door, I'd be crying and shaking, thankful to be home, and wanting comfort from my then-boyfriend and champion bad-weather driver. I say all this because what happened yesterday was not in particularly bad weather. Cold, yes, but dry roads, at least as much as I could tell. But about an eighth of a mile south of Rocky Flats, the plutonium manufacturer long since closed down, on a totally flat part of the highway, I started to spin out at about 60 miles an hour. Black ice. I had no traction, just a feeling of being weightless in the car as it slid left and right. Talking to myself as I braked, but no memory of what I said. In front of me a pickup truck was sliding out too, over into the other lane. And in front of us a green Jeep Cherokee slid left, then right, zigzagged a few times across both lanes, and then flipped over and landed on its driver-side, facing me and the pickup that had come to a stop in front of me, the Cherokee's windshield facing us. As soon as my car came to a stop, I shakily dialed 911. A man got out of the pickup, cell phone to his ear. As he did, two women miraculously climbed out of the Cherokee. The state patrol arrived and flagged us on, as the women stood on the side of the road. We all had been tremendously lucky.

The rest of the way the road was perfectly dry, but I had to fight the urge to turn back. Although I felt like I needed a drink when I got to Golden to have lunch with my ex-boyfriend, the same one I lived with when I made that drive so many winters ago, we went to Wild Oats as planned and I cried as he held me.